Tuesday, October 4, 2011

I'm pretty sure having an ELL student in my classroom would be particularly difficult. I can hardly imagine how hard it would be learning any content when one does not completely understand the language it is taught in; how completely frustrating would it be to learn another language from another language that is difficult to understand? That would be terribly unfair to the student. If I ever had an ELL student in my classroom, I would try my best to communicate my teaching ideas to the student in his/her native language. This would be easy for some aspects; I could simply give the student vocabulary lists that translate Japanese words into his/her first language. Lectures and grammar lessons would be more difficult to convey, however. I would try to at the very least give the student a cheat sheet that translates key words from the lesson into his/her first language. I would also be prepared to spend extra time with that student to make sure he/she can keep pace with the rest of the class. I just hope that extra time would be available. Learning new material in a language that is not your first can be horrifying; I would like to ensure that learning in my classroom would be as painless as possible.